One caress
by Potix
Summary: Prompt from Flavialikestodraw:"Khan doesn't remember his past (when he was Sherlock). The only thing he remembers are the eyes, the hair and the scent of his wife, but he doesn't remember anything else, not even her name. Molly instead remembers everything and needs for him to retrieve his memory in order to escape from the Enterprise".
1. Chapter 1

**I don't own these characters, I don't own the Star Trek's universe nor any characters that are part of the BBC'S Sherlock universe: I only own my sick fantasies...for now. Not beta-ed, and I apologize in advance for any mistake you will find, since English is not my first language.**

**Prompt from Flavialikestodraw:"Khan doesn't remember his past(when he was Sherlock). The only thing he remembers are the eyes, the hair and the scent of his wife (Molly Hooper), but he doesn't remember anything else, not even her name. Molly instead remembers everything and needs for him to retrieve his memory in order to escape from the Enterprise".**

* * *

_**When you think you've tried every road  
Every avenue  
Take one more look  
At what you found old  
And in it you'll find something new.**_

**Depeche Mode- One caress**

* * *

Molly knew she didn't have much time. She had managed to create a false identity and embark the Enterprise as an assistant to Dr. McCoy, but she knew that had AdmiralMarcus' spies on her tail. It was only a matter of time before her cover would fall...but her mission was too important to let her worries compromise it. Now that Kirk, Spock and Uhura had taken the prisoner on the ship, she was just a breath away from success.

She walked down the corridor with her usual brisk step, a mug of that beverage they now called "coffee" in her hands, a pleasant smile hiding her inner tension. She reached the detention room, and approached the guard.

"Doctor McCoy asked for you" she announced. At the confused expression of the man, Molly continued "He needs to vaccinate the crew - Captain Kirk and the others might have taken aboard some Klingoln bacterium, and we don't want to take the risk. It's just a precaution, don't worry. I have to conduct some further analysis on the prisoner, so I will stay here until your return".

She could feel the prisoner's gaze on her: cold, calculating...foreign, but familiar at the same time. _"Now or never, Molly"_ she told herself. She waited for the guard to leave the room, and disabled the cameras, pouring the content of the mug on the control console: she had been careful to depict herself as a clumsy, probe to accidents woman, so they wouldn't be too suspicious. Of course, the fact that she had been the one convincing McCoy that vaccinating the crew was paramount, and that she had requested new analysis on Khan, was only because she was a very scrupulous doctor, not because she desperately needed some time alone with him...

"You did it on purpose...whatever your agenda is, be sure of one thing: I wouldn't regret walking over your cold corpse". His tone was firm, almost emotionless, but she could detect a hint of curiosity. Oh, her man was buried under years of murders, of crimes and sick ambitions, but he was still there, somewhere...

"Listen, I don't have enough time to fake some terrorized expression at your menaces - I just need you to remember. Remember, please, and this nightmare will end" Molly pleaded, and opened the circular slot, the same that McCoy had used before to take his blood. This time, it was her arm the one inserted, and Khan didn't waste one second to yank her against the window.

"Who are you, and what are you trying to do?" he inquired, his gaze probing her. She swallowed a lump, and tentatively she opened her hand, letting her palm press against his chest, slowly caressing his muscles. She could feel his heartbeat, steady, controlled: she knew it by memory, having listened to it night after night, when he had taken her body against his in their sleep. Now, it was the remembrance of a life they had lost, but that they could start again, with the others who were still hidden in the fake weapons.

"I don't have time to explain...trust me, and I promise you that soon, everything, every broken memory you have, will make sense".

"How do you know about them?" Khan asked, and he saw the first tears leaving her eyes.

"I know that at night, fragments of voices of the past calls you, and tells you a story. A story made of men, and women, and laughter and tears. A story that brings you back to a past that you don't remember, prior to the Eugenics war, when you were not the man you are now. I know, because it had happened to me too, when I woke up, alone, three years ago".

Khan remained silent. That woman was not part of his crew, but now that her hand was pressed against his body, he caught a sniff of her scent. Citrus, pomegrenate...the fragance triggered something else: the memory of soft, chestnut hair, sprawled on a pillow, and the warm, loving gaze of a woman, whispering words of lust and love. The same gaze of the doctor before him now.

"I see it in your eyes, that I'm still a stranger to you. I don't blame you, it took me years, before I could remember everything...after all, the man who made this to you and your crew didn't reserve the same treatment to me. He took me away from you, and let you fall from your pedestal, to transform you into...what you are now. He transformed you into everything you despised...but I know that you are just hidden somewhere, in your mind palace, waiting to recall...Now it's time to come back...Sherlock".

It was liberating, being able to call him by his real name again...but she didn't have time to rejoice. "Admiral Marcus is just a puppet in the hands of a greater menace. We need to stop him, one more time. Before you will have your revenge against Marcus, ask him about Jim".

"Jim? James Kirk?". It didn't make sense, that woman was delirious...there was none behind Marcus, he would have known. He was better that the others, they couldn't deceive him...but the lost memories, maybe they were the key...and that strange name, Sherlock...

The sound of footsteps outside the room made Molly recoil. "The game is on, Sherlock...remember, for me. For us". She pulled back, and closed the slot. They were damaged, estranged, lost and far from their home and their time, but maybe, there was still hope for them.

**Thanks for reading...and be kind, let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**I don't own these characters, I don't own the Star Trek's universe nor any characters that are part of the BBC'S Sherlock universe: I only own my sick fantasies...for now. Not beta-ed, and I apologize in advance for any mistake you will find, since English is not my first language. Also, I admit that I'm not a Trekkie: if you found any mistake in my depiction of the Star Trek universe, please fell free to let me know!**

"Marla! Marla!". Dr McCoy's voice reached her when she was already halfway to the Enterprise's lab. After more than two years using her fake identity, Molly could barely tolerate being called by her false name. She put on her most compliant smile and stopped, waiting for Bones to reach her. Her first encounter with John Harrison had been interrupted by the guards and the technicians entering the room, alerted by the security system signaling a malfunction. They had let her go, after listening to her heartful apology for the accident, accompanied by her most contrite expression.

"Yes, Leonard?" she replied, using her usual compliant tone. "I am just going to the laboratory, if you are worried about the results...".

The Starfleet doctor didn't let her finish. "I'm not worried about the bloody test results! I am worried about you!".

"About me? Why?" Molly feigned surprise, although she knew very well why Bones was so apprehensive. It was thanks to him that she had managed to embark on the Enterprise: she had managed to impress him with her unparalleled skills during a conference in S. Francisco, and since then, she had been one of his most trusted assistants. If only he knew how many lies she had told him, just to be there, near the man everyone else on the ship feared...

"You ask me why?! You remained in the detention room with a psycho terrorist, without camera control, for five minutes! You should have called for help immediately!". Bones got close and put a hand on her shoulder, in a reassuring gesture. "He could have...".

"What? Escaped from his maximum-security cell, and then? Kidnapped me? Hurt me?". She dismissed her own words with a shrug. "Just because I'm prone to accident, that doesn't mean that I'm completely helpless. I took the same courses every other medical officer have taken, included the self-defence and combat lessons. I'm able to fight every enemy threat...".

"Not this one, Marla. Kirk told me what happened back on Kronos: he dispatched an entire Klingon patrol, alone. He's ruthless, Marla, and cold-blooded. He's not a man...he's a machine".

Hearing someone define the man she loved a machine, _again_, made her blood boil. She stiffened her posture and squeezed the vials in her hand, and took a deep breath; Bones would mistake her reaction for disgust at Harrison's actions, rather than anger at his words, thankfully. His observation skills were surely mediocre, even when not compared to Sherlock's matchless talent . Just thinking his name, in the safety of her mind, made her claw back her control.

"Then, we need to analyse him further, just to find his weak spot. See you later, Leonard". Molly left McCoy and hurried down the ship's corridor, hoping that her meeting with the prisoner had been successful. They had not enough time...and she was tired to wait.

* * *

John Harrison was sitting still. his back straight, his cold eyes fixed on the wall. Hopefully Kirk had already sent someone to the coordinates he had given him before, and tried to open one of his torpedos. He knew how to manipulate the captain's conscience to achieve his purpose, he knew how to find if the person in front of him was lying, or not. He had always known how to do it, how to read men and women, and how to find the answers that anyone else couldn't give. In a deep recess of his mind, where he still couldn't venture, Khan knew they were the memories of a life, prior to the one he had experienced with his crew; a life when he had used the same abilities, but for a different aspiration.

After Marcus had awoken him, he had started to dream about it. Intertwined with the recollection of his crimes, of the death and despair he had inflicted in order to gain the power and show his supremacy, were fragments of a life who was foreign to him, yet familiar.

There was one image , that kept returning. A bedroom, unadorned, if it weren't for the bed, the wardrobe and the table of periodical elements hung to the wall. He was sleeping, but a quiet whimper had startled him awake. There, in his arms, lied a woman; her bare back against his chest. Her soft, auburn hair tickled him, but it didn't bother him: actually, he found it quite pleasing. He pressed his nose to the spot where her neck met her shoulders, and inhaled: her fragrance was intoxicating, and every time, it left him wanting more. His arms flexed, tightening his embrace...and then, he usually woke up, before she could turn into his arms and he could hear her voice, and see her face.

Khan grew bored of fixing an invisible point on the wall, and closed his eyes; his supreme senses would alert him of any change in the room, anyway. He started to wander in the compartments of his Mind Ship, trying to find some other clues. It took him a lot of time, to reach the strange, old-fashioned bedroom. Everything was the same: the same furniture, the same female body, resting peacefully in his arms.

He let his mind replay the memory, a part of him breaking at the notion that in a few moments, the feeling of contentment of having that stranger in his arms would be gone. Khan savoured the sensation of his fingers brushing against the warm and soft expanse of skin just under her bellybutton for a last time, and waited.

This time, before the woman disappeared in his arms, she sighed. And this time, the sound of her voice, moaning a name, reached his ears.

"Oh, Sherlock..." she said, before his conscience jolted him awake.

**Thanks for reading...and be kind, let me know what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

**I don't own these characters, I don't own the Star Trek's universe nor any characters that are part of the BBC'S Sherlock universe: I only own my sick fantasies...for now. Not beta-ed, and I apologize in advance for any mistake you will find, since English is not my first language. Also, I admit that I'm not a Trekkie: if you found any mistake in my depiction of the Star Trek universe, please fell free to let me know!**

When her alarm clock - a 23rd century alarm clock, so sophisticated to make her old clock-radio similar to a clepsydra - signaled that it was time to rise and shine, Molly Hooper was already awake. The constant stream of memories that assaulted her mind every night had not failed to make their appearance, haunting her dreams and stealing her precious hours of sleep. It usually started with the recollection of a pleasant moment, like a late morning spent lazily in bed, or a cold afternoon in baker Street, with Sherlock occupied with his experiments and she with her essays.

This time, it had been the last time they had made love. She could remember everything: every moan, every intake of breath sighed on her skin, every short gasp...every journey his fingers had made on her body, every "Molly, oh Molly", whispered just in her ear...He had smiled at her when she had left Baker Street to go to St. Bart's, and then...then she had woken up centuries later, and her world was gone. Sherlock, John, Mary...still together, but so different from the people she remembered, and loved.

She shook her head, as to dismiss from her mind the memories. She needed to focus on the plan, and not on the memories of a life that was now lost. She was ready to go to the medical bay, when Dr. McCoy intercepted her.

"Wrong way, Marla. The captain needs to see us both". And in that exact moment, Molly could see her life going spectacularly to hell.

* * *

In the little meeting room, Kirk and Spock were already waiting for them.

"Dr. McGivers, Dr. McCoy, please take a seat". Molly faked a relaxed expression and sat down next to Bones. A part of her hated how good at concealing her real emotions she had become, and every time, another voice, so similar to Sherlock's, reminded her how important it was to deceive , to dissimulate, in order to reach her objective. She could almost hear him murmuring by her ear, his breath smelling faintly of cigarettes and Mrs. Hudson's scones and tickling the hair on her nape:"_After all, you deceived everyone, when you helped me faking my death, didn't you? You just have to give an encore, Molly Hooper...and so far, you've been superb"_.

Kirk's practical tone brought her attention back to the men in the room."Dr. McGivers, we summoned you here to inform you that for a brief period, your superior, Dr. McCoy, will leave the ship. Therefore, you will be in charge of the medical bay from the moment he will leave the Enterprise. I'm sure you won't disappoint us, Marla". The Captain's tone grew softer, and Bones smiled at her in a comforting way. Only Spock remained impassive.

"I will do my best, Captain. And I want to apologise again for the accident in the detention room, I'm so sorry-".

A brisk gesture from Kirk halted her justification. "There's no need to apologise again, Doctor. We are just relieved that the prisoner didn't try anything. But your mention of yesterday gives me the occasion to inform you of the new procedures all of us have to follow, in presence of the prisoner, from now on. None, but Mr. Spock and me. is allowed to stay alone in the room with Mr. Harrison. You, and your subordinates, will perform the requested examinations on the captive at the presence of at least three guards. Is that clear?".

Both Bones and Molly nodded. For the first time since the meeting had started, Spock intervened. "Any disregard of this new rule is going to be sanctioned by court-martial". Molly could feel the Vulcan's cold gaze lingering on her. So, Spock suspected something...exactly what she needed. Once again, Sherlock's deep voice restored her confidence. _"Don't let the mask sleep. You're far more intelligent that him, Molly...I know you can do it"_.

Kirk let out a unintelligible grunt. "Yes, Mr. Spock, thanks...but I'm sure everything is going to be alright. Dr. McGivers, you're free to go back to the medical bay - you will find our dear prisoner waiting for you to take another sample of his blood and...whatever Bones here wants to examine. Bones, get ready, Dr. Ma- I mean, Science Officer Wallace is waiting for you".

Molly and Bones took their leave, leaving the Captain and the Science officer alone in the meeting room.

"I don't trust her". Spock's flat tone didn't show any emotion, but Kirk prided himself of knowing his first officer well enough to detect even the smallest sign of turmoil in him.

He turned and faced the Vulcan. "Do you trust Bones, Mr. Spock?".

"Of course I trust Dr. McCoy. I may find his swearing habit and his humour often inappropriate, but I don't let my personal liking influence my judgement". The Vulcan said, seemingly genuinely offended by his Captain's question.

"Very well...now I'm asking you to make a leap of faith, and trust Dr. McGivers, too. Bones trusts her completely; he's fully convinced of her abilities, and was his supervisor when she joined the Fleet. You're inclined to see conspiracy everywhere", Kirk halted Spock's protest with a friendly pat on his shoulder, and continued "And normally I will trust your acumen, but now we more pressing issues to solve, than the clumsiness of a doctor".

The science officer simply nodded, and excused himself with a curt "Captain". Kirk watched him leave, hoping he had put his trust in the right officer, that time.

* * *

Molly's mind was in a turmoil. Not being able to speak with Sherlock dampened drastically the possibility that the former consulting detective could regain his memories...and it was crucial for both of them, for all of them, that Sherlock got back to his old self...to his real self.

Furthermore, Kirk's slip of the tongue about Admiral Marcus' daughter was unexpected. She had known from the beginning of their mission the real identity of Officer Wallace; the fact that also Kirk (or, more presumptively, Spock) had discovered it, and so soon, added another variable on the plan.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed Bones' farewell. Dr. McCoy was probably the only member of the crew she cared about, and the only one she truly regretted lying to. She accepted his congratulations for her temporary promotion with a shy smile, and when he warned her again to watch out for the dangerous, maniac homicidal they were carrying around, Molly feigned the most frightened expression she could. Poor Leonard, he didn't deserve the bitter disappointment her close betrayal would surely cause...provided always that she could find a way to bring her Sherlock back.

Talking of him...the man known as John Harrison was waiting for her in the medical bay, surrounded by three heavily armed guards. His deadpan gaze followed her during the preparation of the tools needed for another blood test, and Molly ignored him purposely, preferring to channel her anxiety into searching for a way to communicate with him, without risking a high treason charge (at least not before she got through her plan).

Molly forced herself to remain straight-faced, when she drew up his sleeve and searched for a vein, her grip on the syringe firm and steady. His skin was still pale, but the scars of his addiction were vanished, like the memories of his lost life, of _their_ lost life. She chose to bypass the flashbacks of that time in the lab, when she had almost hated him, for his carelessness towards his gift, towards the people who loved him. She had no time for anger, or sadness now.

When she extracted the needle, a drop of blood escaped, a crimson tear on his marble-like epidermis. She turned to retrieve some cotton wool, when she felt something familiar, a sensation she had almost despaired of feeling again: the gentle, yet resolute pressure of his fingers on her wrist, monitoring her pulse.

**Thanks for reading...and be kind, let me know what you think!**


End file.
